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Phosphate Resources Ltd v Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts (3).

País/Territorio
Australia
Tipo de la corte
Nacional - corte superior
Fecha
Dic 12, 2008
Fuente
UNEP, InforMEA
Nombre del tribunal
Federal Court of Australia
Sede de la corte
Sidney
Juez
Buchanan.
Número de referencia
[2008] FCA 1899
Idioma
Inglés
Materia
Cuestiones jurídicas, Recursos minerales, Medio ambiente gen.
Palabra clave
Minería Ordenación de áreas costeras
Resumen
The decision of the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, dated 27 April 2007, refusing approval to the applicant for expanded mining on Christmas Island, which was referred for consideration pursuant to s 68 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) on 1 November 2001 and identified as EPBC 2001/487, was challenged in the Federal Court by Phosphate Resources Ltd. On 13 October 2008 the court found for Phosphate Resources Ltd and set aside the former minister's decision. Being a judicial review application, the judge was looking for errors in administrative decisions taken by the Minister and his department and found two errors in the way DEWHA had briefed the Minister which fatally flawed the refusal decision and led him to set it aside. In this decision Justice Buchanan did not award the successful party its full costs. Costs are always discretionary however the ordinary rule is that costs follow the event. In this short but comprehensive decision he explains the circumstances justifying when to depart from the ordinary rule. The decision is significant because it collects and summarises the key principles. At paragraph 11 the Judge summarised the three key principles in awarding costs:Within the general discretion of the courts to award costs it is accepted by decisions in both Australian and English jurisdictions that: Ordinarily costs follow the event and a successful litigant receives costs in the absence of special circumstances justifying some other order. Where a litigant has succeeded only upon a portion of the claim, the circumstances may make it reasonable that the litigant bear the expense of litigating that portion upon which he or she has failed. A successful party who has failed on certain issues may not only be deprived of the costs of those issues but may be ordered as well to pay the other parties’ costs of them. In this sense “issue” does not mean a precise issue in the technical pleading sense but any disputed question of fact or law. The Judge found that the departure from the “ordinary rule” on costs is the exception. He also found the exception applied here because the applicant failed on the case it brought to trial. The oral and written submissions were focused on that case concept. The respondent’s case was based on that premise.
Texto completo
COU-156683.pdf